The Name on the Sign

The wail of the police sirens grew louder, echoing off the skyscrapers of downtown Chicago.

The back door slammed shut, cutting off Matteo’s desperate screams. Don Rossi and his men were gone, vanishing into the labyrinth of the city’s underground with my husband.

The beautiful restaurant was finally silent, save for the piercing ring of the security alarm triggered by the shattered window.

I stood in the center of the room, my heart hammering a frantic rhythm against my ribs. I was still clutching Clara’s hand so tightly my knuckles ached.

“Mom,” Clara gasped, her chest heaving as she looked at the broken glass covering the floor. “Are you okay? Did they hurt you?”

I looked at my daughter. The little girl I had raised in the shadow of a monster was now a woman who had just stared down the most dangerous mafia boss in the city to save me.

“I’m okay, sweetheart,” I said, pulling her into a fierce, desperate hug. “You were so brave. The ledger… how did you find it?”

Clara squeezed me back. “When you called me crying about the restaurant, I went to the house. I remembered Matteo always locked his office when the Russians called. I smashed the floor safe with a sledgehammer.”

A small, proud smile broke through my tears. “You smashed it?”

“It took an hour,” Clara laughed, though it sounded more like a sob. “But I found it. I was coming to find you when Thomas grabbed me in the parking lot.”

I pulled back and kissed her forehead. “You saved our lives.”

The flashing red and blue lights of the police cruisers illuminated the street outside, casting jagged shadows across the dining room walls.

“We need to go outside,” I said, stepping carefully over the broken glass. “We have to tell the police everything. About Thomas, about the ledger… about my father.”

We walked toward the front entrance, the cold night wind blowing in through the shattered window.

But as we reached the heavy oak double doors, a sudden, overpowering smell hit me.

Sharp. Chemical. Choking.

Gasoline.

I stopped.

“Mom, what is that smell?” Clara asked, coughing as she covered her nose.

I looked down.

A thick, dark liquid was seeping under the crack of the front doors, pooling on the polished hardwood floor.

Answer one. Rossi hadn’t just fled. He was covering his tracks. He couldn’t risk leaving us alive to talk to the police, but he couldn’t shoot us and leave ballistic evidence for the arriving cops either.

He was going to burn the building down with us inside, just like Matteo had done to my father.

“Clara, run to the back door!” I screamed, pushing her toward the kitchen.

We sprinted across the dining room, our shoes slipping on the slick hardwood. We reached the heavy steel fire door at the back of the kitchen.

I slammed my shoulder into the crash bar.

It didn’t move.

I hit it again, harder, screaming in frustration.

“It’s chained!” Clara cried, pointing to the thick padlock and chain wrapped around the exterior handle, visible through the small wire-glass window.

Rossi’s men had locked us in on their way out.

Suddenly, a bright, blinding flash of orange light erupted from the front of the restaurant.

The gasoline ignited with a concussive whoosh that threw me backward against the stainless steel prep tables.

Flames instantly raced across the hardwood floor, climbing the velvet curtains and licking the beautiful green tiles I had chosen twenty-six years ago.

The heat was instantaneous and suffocating.

“Mom!” Clara screamed, coughing violently as thick black smoke began to fill the ceiling.

“Get low! Crawl!” I ordered, dropping to my hands and knees.

The front of the restaurant was a wall of fire. The back door was chained. The shattered front window was blocked by the inferno.

We were trapped.

I looked around the kitchen, my eyes burning from the acrid smoke. My dream restaurant was turning into my tomb.

“The walk-in freezer!” Clara choked out, pointing to the massive steel door in the corner of the kitchen.

“No!” I grabbed her arm. “It’s not airtight! The smoke will get in, and we’ll suffocate before the fire even reaches us!”

Open two. How had my father died of smoke inhalation at 2:14 AM if the fire didn’t start until 3:00 AM?

Because Matteo had locked him in the freezer of the old restaurant first.

I wouldn’t let my daughter die the same way.

The flames roared louder, devouring the wooden tables and chairs. The heat was blistering, singing the hair on my arms.

I looked frantically around the kitchen.

My eyes landed on the heavy, industrial exhaust hood above the stoves. It was massive, made of thick steel, and vented directly up to the roof.

“Clara!” I shouted over the roar of the fire. “The exhaust vent! We have to climb up!”

Clara looked at the stove, flames already licking the edges of the counters.

“It’s too high!” she cried.

“I’ll boost you!”

I grabbed a heavy cast-iron skillet and smashed the safety glass of the fire extinguisher box on the wall. I pulled the red cylinder out and sprayed it wildly at the base of the stove, beating back the flames just enough to clear a path.

“Go! Now!” I screamed, throwing the extinguisher aside.

Clara scrambled onto the stainless steel counter, coughing as the smoke thickened. She reached up, grabbing the heavy metal grates of the exhaust hood.

I climbed up behind her, ignoring the searing heat of the metal on my hands.

“Kick the grate out!” I ordered.

Clara slammed her heavy boots into the metal vent cover. Once. Twice.

With a loud screech, the grate gave way, falling onto the stove below.

A rush of cold night air poured down the square steel shaft.

“Climb!” I pushed her upward.

Clara pulled herself into the tight, greasy metal shaft, shimmying upward toward the roof. I followed right behind her, my lungs burning, black smoke billowing up the shaft around us.

We climbed for what felt like an eternity, the metal shaft vibrating from the intense heat below.

Finally, Clara reached the top. She pushed open the rooftop vent cover and scrambled out onto the flat tar roof of the building.

She reached down, grabbing my arms, and hauled me up over the edge.

We collapsed onto the cold, wet gravel of the roof, coughing uncontrollably, gasping for the fresh, freezing Chicago air.

Below us, the restaurant was completely consumed. Flames burst through the roof vents, painting the night sky in brilliant, horrifying orange.

We were alive.

I rolled onto my back, staring up at the stars, tears streaming down my soot-covered face.

But as I lay there, catching my breath, I heard the crunch of gravel.

Footsteps.

Someone else was on the roof.

I froze, turning my head slowly.

Standing ten feet away, silhouetted against the glow of the fire, was a man holding a gun pointed directly at us.